Red's Place

So its the last full day in California. Weather is in the mid 90sF, which is useless info to me, but actually converts to mid 30sC. Very warm!

My sister and her husband flew down from Seattle to join us for the weekend, and we had a great mexican meal last night. I forgot that Tequila is not one of those flavours I do, so the "grande margarita" that I ordered was handed over quickly to my brother in law :-) I returned to the safety of the bottled beer!

As always when on holiday, its going to be over all too soon, so I'll catch up next week.

Like most airports this is really boring! I guess knowing you are going to be stuck for 11hrs in a 747 doesn't help!

Anyway, net access for $3 for 10mins, very high speed works well.

Guess I'd better board... back to the cold and wet they cal England...

Byeeeeee

Finally made it back to old LHR. Virgin Atlantic are not my favourite airline anymore, as they seem to have been stuck in the mid 90s. When the US carriers (at Heathrow, United and American) added more seat room (took a row out) from 30/31" to 34", Virgin have stayed at 31". I don't know about British Airways, but I know their flight to Australia last year was very comfortable.

So as a 6ft4in tall bod, I'm avoiding Mr Branson's airline just on legroom. The return flight was so uncomfortable.

The rest of the flight was good, outbound the inflight entertainment was on "reduced setting 1" (my words) which meant the VoD system was crippled, couldn't even tell us the titles of the movies, and some options missing. The enhanced map option crashed the system, requiring the attendant to reboot (with a Linux boot screen!!). Sigh. Return was much better, it all worked. Movies were typical fare, The Day after Tomorrow, SpiderMan 2 etc.

Anyway, home now, great holiday, too much email to catch up on.

Ribby, WiFi was in the hotel room at $10.95/day, but none in the airport I saw. Even the Starbucks didn't have the T-Mobile logo in the window. However not having any computer equipment with me, it wasn't much use! Maybe I'll get one of them WiFi enabled Nokia Communicators or an iPaq or something one of these days. With built in GPS navigation would be good.

Phut, good on the cable, but bad on the house wiring! I still haven't sorted the heating at mine yet. Hmm....

Anyone who wants to see my photos from the holiday, they've now been uploaded.

http://photos.chamier.co.uk/

One of my friends asked a bunch of us to list our 5 favourite tracks. So here are mine, with a few comments.

1) Secret Messages - Electric Light Orchestra

This is very recent. This reminds me of the trip to California 2004. I was listening to my iRiver on the plane on the way back, and set the ELO greatest hits album to play when trying to sleep. This was at the end, and I woke up and had to hit repeat. Fantastic tune and great lyrics, and it'll remind me of a very relaxing holiday that had no worries for me. (Coming back home? Don't talk about that!!)

2) Livin' La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin

Reminds me of the trip in 1999, Wendy's and Al's wedding in DC and the trip to New York, being with a huge gang of friends. I think the biggest group of people I've been travelling with. This track reminds me of the trip, but its still not one I'd choose to play, but if it comes on the radio it stays on.

3) Dreaming while you sleep - Genesis

This will always remind me of trying to revise for important exams in the early 90s. I used to blot out the sound of the rest of the family with headphones and try and get some assignment or essay done. Don't think it worked, but I remember the track as being great, the album is also good.

4) Walking down Madison - Kirsty MacColl

This will always remind me of leaving Melbourne on the very long flight home last year. After the amazing trip for Caroline & Jason's wedding, and the few days in Sydney, leaving was the last thing I wanted to do. Listening to my old MP3 player whilst trying to get some sleep, and discovering that we were on the wrong side of the aircraft to see Ayres Rock/Uluru that the captain told us we could see. This song reminds me of the 8.5hr trip from Melbourne to Singapore vividly!

5) Its all about soul - Billy Joel

This will remind me of the California trip in 2002, starting out with Teresa&Jon's wedding in San Fran, and then driving the I5 to LA and onward with Rob, listening to various CDs.

Other notable mentions:

a) Living a Boy's Adventure Tale - A-Ha
From the first album that I bought (probably 50/50 with my sister), I still have the cassette (somewhere), but bought the CD a few years back. This track reminds me of being on board my parents boat (that they had then) and being on the River Thames, which is very large in a small craft :-)

b) Keep Talking - Pink Floyd
From the last album (division bell) this wasn't long after I met Paul and Craig. I remember being alone living in a very crap rented room the other side of Farnborough in 1994! I remember telling myself it wouldn't be long, listening to this playing through the PC. (I only had a PC and a TV then!).

c) Tell me if you still care - S.O.S. Band
I got this from iTunes last month. This reminds me of my birthday (probably 8 or 10) when my parents got me my first personal stereo/walkman. It came with a free double casette set with some great tracks on, my first intro to 80s pop music. This was the one I remember from then. Quite an early memory for me, as I don't remember much that far back. :-)

Right, back to work tomorrow, so better get some shuteye.

My state of mind is very much unknown. Going back to work was like a rude awakening and my manager phoned at 9:30am on Monday about my "paperwork" crud. Arrghhhh........

Electric Light Orchestra - Secret Messages

A moving stream of information
That is floating on the wind
The secrets never end
And now they call
They sing, they play, they dance
For you, from out of the blue
What can you do?

My 3.4ghz P4 CPU has apparently arrived, so on Saturday I'll be taking my Dell apart to increase the speed from 2.8ghz to 3.4. Its the fastest Northwood P4 that my i875 chipset PC can support.

Phut was asking about the TPS reports! I think he means my "paperwork". This is something I'm being 'forced' to do for my own benefit. Its nothing to do with the project I'm on, but more to do with my line manager. Easiest way for non IBMer to understand is to explain it as a 9year version of an annual review, with references etc!

Of course if I don't do it by the end of Oct, I'll have no hope of a promotion or payrise or ... :-)

I have to almost finish it this weekend, but have to find some referees!

Ok, so Sky Movies is showing "The Abyss" rated 15. So I think it should include the 'rat underwater' scene. No, they cut it. Fine. But they didn't cut the sound. So its out of sync for about the next 1 to 2 minutes!! Pathetic. Really pathetic!

Anyway, Phut, I'm still there, yes, perhaps for these reasons:
* I've done 6 different jobs
* I've worked in three different industries
* I've met and worked with some great (and some no so!) customers.

The IT industry in this area is not doing well, ask Pete, so its not the time to move. I have no complaints about my day-to-day work, its the 'overhead' non revenue generating stuff that I don't understand.

The scheme is similar to doing a 3rd party certification, its like writing an extensive CV, explaining how you got your skills and how you use them. If I ever get it done, I can put a PDF online :-)

Ok, so I haven't posted in a week, but that's because I've had nothing to say. Have been busy at work trying to work out why our production server does odd things. In fact its been ok from the customer perspective, just that we couldn't get any terminal services, or VNC connections onto the box to admin. Arrghh.

Phut, in reply to your comment, its not my DVD, its my dads, and I haven't seen it in over 12months, so +'d it on skymovies when I was out.

Talking of out, its nearly time to go out to the sunday night pub, its the Oatsheaf quiz night, and thus its worth going along for the humour, but no point taking part as its just me and Dave.

New week beckons, have fun all.

(added text in italics on 27th Oct at 19:11)

"Famous for cheese steak's" is how Jon Snow said it. Yes, Channel 4 News is in a Philadephia diner (Penrose Restaurant?), getting the (ab)USers to argue it out. Quite amusing. Its also amusing that its pretty close to Mr Phut!

Talking of Phut, 2 years today he and Mrs Phut were hutched in Hawaii. Cool.... still need to go back there.

In terms of the election, I'm fully in agreement with Phut, and obviously also Ribby's view that we all need to vote. I'm a fan of the Australian system where you have to vote, and they vote on weekends. I like that idea.

Yes, spot the deliberate spelling error in the last post. Oh well, I guess I could work out how to edit, but that's too much hard work.

Have a link instead...

http://www.ebaydvds4u.co.uk/msh/eBaysmsh.htm

Interesting article on the BBC News about an airline stewardess, sorry, attendant, getting suspended for blogging !

Seems a little strong, especially when they're unable to tell her what policy she's broken.

I know at IBM, I can get an intranet blog. Not sure why I'd want to.....

Looks like I'm going to be lucky enough to be able to swap my T30 for a T40p, which is a nice little beast of a machine. Incremental improvement rather than the radical improvement of the Pentium 3 to a Pentium 4mobile, but a new CPU (the pentium M, which is more efficent) and a half weight unit! Extended battery, USB 2, and a 1400x1024 screen. Should be a blast... Just gotta get the software installed and the data transferred!

Right, off to the pub for food and Dave's birthday, catch you lot later...

Obviously Phut can, but nobody outside the US can see Dubya Bush's re-election website.

Seems to be deliberate, but nobody is talking....

Well, all the overseas US citizens obviously aren't important to the Bush-Cheney campaign!

Steve Ballmer can sell anything, can't he?

http://www.energyradio.fm/anm/templates/ftf.aspx?articleid=101&zoneid=5